Youthful Fear and What To Do With It

Young athletes and fear often collide like freight trains racing toward each other on the same track.  All of us face it.  But for the young athlete, it is often horrific.

When our oldest daughter Rachel was five, she started track.  Practice was ok.  She liked running, the new shoes, and a uniform.  Moms and coaches were there in the shadows of an open stadium, with empty bleachers,  lots of encouragement and love.  There was nothing threatening about practice.  Not so on the day of the first track meet.  She got up, got dressed, and started crying.  Her mother and I sat for a long time with her on her bed consoling and dabbing tears.   She told us she was afraid, that she didn’t know if she could do it, that she was scared.   We encouraged her to go, to see what was going on, to give it a try.

Now it was the parents turn to be afraid.  What if she had a negative experience?  What if she never ran again?   What if she wanted to throw rocks at us?   All good questions.  We arrived at the track.  The stadium was full of parents and kids. The infield was covered with the bright uniforms of stretching athletes, high jumpers, track teams, and chatter.  The track was marked with fresh chalk.  The starter carried a pistol.  There were lots of things frightening to a child who had practiced in the shadows of a quiet stadium and did not want to run except maybe home.  So we sat on the grass, watched the runners prepare, and listened to the starter pistol pop in the early morning sunshine.  We just watched.

Her race was called.  “Try it,” I said to her.  “If you don’t like it, we’ll go home.  Give it a try.”   I think that at that moment in time I was more frightened than she.  Such a promise.  She lined up for  the 200 meter, looking at her mother, sister and I, then, at the starter with his huge black starter pistol, his raspy voice, shouting “Ready.”  The gun went off, and the race was on.  Rachel may not have started well.  That pistol was loud and the fans were cheering but she started, she ran, and to everyone’s astonishment . . . she won.   No one was more relieved than I.

At little league tryouts my youngest son, all six years of him, wasn’t sure.   In fact he was absolutely not sure.  There were lots of people.  Names were called over a megaphone for each boy and girl to come up– to throw the ball, to catch it, to swing the bat at a ball pitched and one perched on a T.  But the pitched ball was thrown by a full-grown man that in this case had played ball professionally.   There were ten men with clip boards watching.

It wasn’t the backyard, where everyone loved and adored him.   It was with a hundred parents and seemingly a thousand kids his age, watching . . . him.  His name was called.  He didn’t want to go.  He, like his sister wanted to go home.  So we watched the entire tryout.   He noted that he knew a lot of those kids, that he’d played with them, that they did ok.  He thought about the fact that it was only a ball.  The crowd began to diminish.  No one was carried away in a stretcher.  Finally he decided that he could do it, that it was no big deal.  And it was no big deal.  He’d overcome those fears, all by himself.

We all have fears.   Performance anxiety is real.   It takes time, encouragement, and as little “stress” pressure as possible for young athletes to seize their demons.   Rachel went on to become an all star in track, basketball, and soccer.  She overcame those fears, as did her brother.  Parental and coach patience, together with lots of encouragement are the keys to overcoming fear.  For all of us it is different.  Once the kids know that they “can,”  the parents can relax.  You know they “will.”

The Mental Side of a Winning Athlete

The Mental Side Of Winning

The most forgotten side of coaching athletics is mental.  Yet the mental side of coaching will yield the most positive results of any coaching you will do.  It will give positive results quicker with less coaching than any other single set of techniques.   Despite its great value, it is forgotten, often disregarded, not to mention lost and hidden behind teaching physical skills.

At its very foundation the mental side of any sport is being and thinking positive.  A word of warning: Beware of this simplistic definition because the negative often camouflages the positive.  Here is an example: In shooting free throws the athlete often approaches the task saying to himself, “I gotta make this shot” and he or she’s very positive in this affirmation.  This is, however, a negative, and is counter productive.  The chances are increased that the shot will be missed.  Instead of relaxing and letting the shot just happen, the muscles will invariably tense up and the difficulty of the exercise will increase.  “I gotta, I have to, If I don’t make this shot I’ll just die . . . “, are all negatives and are to be avoided.

On the positive side, the athlete will approach the foul line, receive the ball from the referee, then begin his or her ritual, by bouncing the ball a proscribed number of times or none at all, eye the basket, indeed, eye a particular part of the basket.  During this ritual, he will be reviewing in his mind exactly how he makes this shot, remembering successful feelings of making the shot, mentally saying “this is how I take this shot.”   He should then release the ball to the basket without allowing another thought to enter the mind.   The statistical probability of making the shot will increase dramatically depending in part on the particular skill level of the athlete.  Note, the mental side is taught.  It doesn’t just happen.  It, like all muscle memory exercises, must be repeated as often as possible.

The same mental preparedness is true of a soccer player about to kick a penalty shot or a batsman about to address a sixty-mile-an-hour curve ball.  The simple mental preparation is accomplished as the athlete reviews how he performs the task successfully.  This mental preparation in conjunction with physical repetition, i.e., doing a task perfectly, yields fantastic results.

The second and equally important portion of mental preparedness comes directly from the coach himself.  Praise profusely and loudly and do it sincerely.   Your athletes need to know you approve of them.  Every athlete has something to praise, even if it is merely showing up.  Find it, praise it loudly, and reap the results.  Athletes tend to perform up to or down to the coach’s announced expectations.

Coach’s Meeting – Most Important Meeting of All – Part 2

There are just four more topics to address:

• Half-time and after game snack assignments.  Snacks should be available for the end of every game and during half time at soccer games.  The half-time snack should be orange slices and water; not sugar, for reasons I will explain later.  A team mom or dad needs to be appointed to coordinate this and to make sure this happens.  Young players love the snacks and will remember them long past the game they play.

• Game conduct.   This meeting gives you the opportunity to state what you expect of players and parents at each contest.  This is important.  Really important.   You will need to tell them what time the youth athlete is to be at a game.  Tell the parents what you expect at the game; i.e., only encouragement from the parents.  No one talks to the referees but you.  Announce that you, and only you, will criticize a player, and then only in private, and always away from everyone else.  Remember to praise loudly, teach softly, and critique, where it is called for, one on one and in private.

• Homework.  Most sports require athletes to do homework on a daily basis.   For example: shoot fifty free throws a day: play catch with Dad or Mom every day: take so many ground balls every day: practice dribbling forward and backward every day.   Every sport has these types of exercises.   What you really are looking for generally is for the youth athlete to touch a ball every day, run every day, and get the parents involved every day.  This makes it a joint effort, something everyone is involved in.

• Necessary equipment.  Give specific information regarding the type of equipment, clothing, and shoes each athlete will need.  You can avoid such things as a six-year-old coming to practice with a fifty-one ounce bat when he really needs something that weighs nineteen ounces.   You can explain the difference between a number five soccer ball and a number three.  You can show what type of cleat the particular sport requires and what exactly will be worn on the field.  If shin guards are required, you can discuss the best kinds, and their importance.

So, why is this meeting so important?  It allows everyone to start the season on the same page, working together to accomplish the same goals.  It will facilitate the success of the season every day thereafter.   It is the most important first thing you will do as a coach.   It is, by definition, the place to start.   It is the place everyone’s expectations are defined and expanded on.  It is the place where you, as the coach, inform everyone that you only coach champions and that being champions has nothing to do with winning or losing.  By definition, your players are already winners.

Coach’s Meeting – Most Important Meeting of All – Part 1

I coached soccer for 18 years, managed little league baseball teams for 17 years, and coached approximately 20 basketball teams.  There is one meeting that’s a must and that leads to success.  Its absence leads to steep walls to climb, additional, multiple hurdles to clear.  It is the coach’s meeting with parents and players.  I have done it both ways: had them and ignored them, and suffered the consequences for not having them.  If I could do it over,  I’d always have them.   This meeting is the first step to a successful season.  The meeting should be held in your home before the first practice.  Both parents and the player need to be present. Stress its importance when you first contact the player and parents.  Here’s what needs to be covered at this meeting:

• Your introduction.  Introduce yourself.  Give your philosophy on coaching; what you hope to achieve.  It shouldn’t be winning.  It should be teaching and learning to play a game.

• The number of practices to be held each week.  This varies with the age of the team you are coaching.

• The location of the practices.

• Who will be present.  Never coach alone.  If you have no assistants to help you, then work out a program for a least one parent to be there at all times.  Why?   If someone is injured, who will take him or her to the emergency room?   Besides, you’ll need at least two people to help you at every practice.  Remember, get the parents involved.   Teach your assistant to coach.   The more involvement you can get, the more you success you’ll experience.

• Dates and times of the practices.  Stress coming to practice on time.  Inform parents and athletes of the consequences of missing practice, or of coming late to practice.  Discussing this will enable parents to work together to get their athletes to practice on time.  Again, the more assistance you get the greater opportunity for success.   If a player is not going to be at practice, require that the player, and not the parent, call to inform you of the situation.  Remember, you are teaching player responsibility not parental responsibility.  Practices are not practices unless everyone is present.  Stress this.

There’s more to discuss.  Follow me to Part 2.